New documentary profiles area entertainer

Maurice M. Martinez, a professor at UNCW's Watson College of Education, left, and Grenoldo Frazier, pianist.

Jason A. Frizzelle

By Roberta PennStar News Correspondent

Published: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 12:07 p.m.

If you live in Wilmington and don't know who Grenoldo Frazier is, then you don't get out much. The pianist, singer and songwriter has played most concert halls, clubs and festivals in the area. His repertoire runs from Bach to Chuck Berry, and he has the knowledge, experience and training to play the stylistic rainbow in all its hues.

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On Sunday, Wilmington native and resident Frazier will help tell his own story in "The Piano Entertainer: Stompin' Grenoldo Frazier." The 40-minute film, followed by a talk with Frazier and filmmaker Maurice M. Martinez, debuts Sunday at the Cameron Art Museum.

"The Piano Entertainer" opens with concert footage of Frazier. He scats, sings, cruises through the audience, talks about the music and stomps out the beat. Taped during performances at North Carolina State and Duke universities, Frazier is larger than life but nuanced, as he is at his gigs. He is intense and focused on both pleasing the audience and telling his story. Not his particular story but the thread that runs through almost all American popular music: African-American culture.

Frazier's comfort with the many styles that arise from black folk and spirituals astounded Martinez even though he had know the pianist for years.

"I was astonished at the extent, the wide range of his repertoire," Martinez said. "I knew some of it. But when I got into making the film I was astonished at the range, from country to blues, from Broadway to even Bach, including jazz, shout and swing."

Born in Wilmington, Frazier was raised by his grandmother with a string of piano teachers – all of whose names he remembers – setting the stage for a life in entertainment. As a teen he was both a journalist (sports editor of the New Hanover High School newspaper and an intern at the Wilmington StarNews) and an actor and musician, performing at Thalian Hall and in school productions. But in 1972 he was ready for the big time and moved to New York City, where his birth mother lived.

For the next two decades – he returned to Wilmington in the early '90s to care for his ailing mother, who recently passed – Frazier packed a huge amount of acting, singing and playing into his life. "The Piano Entertainer" highlights a string of glamorous events and experiences that shine like lights on Broadway. Meetings with the rich and famous, a tour with Pearl Baily, a week singing backup for Barry Manilow and Frazier's discovery of Jennifer Holliday are all illustrated with show posters, personal photographs, music scores and handbills. They all came from Frazier's personal collection.

"I had four or five big boxes of photos and other stuff," Frazier said. "I (wrote) on the back what they were and handed them over to Maurice."

Stills of the memorabilia go by at a dizzying speed in Martinez's film. But they are explained and brought to life by Frazier's narration. He wrote and recorded the entire script so the melodic bigness of his singing voice is omnipresent, full of excitement but also personal.

"I wrote it like stream of consciousness," Frazier said. "It was originally more than an hour long."

Most documentaries don't use the subject as the only source of information. There are no interviews with friends, colleagues, fans or teachers in "The Piano Entertainer." Martinez said that is by design.

"In this case it's a biography in the first person," Martinez said. "Grenoldo is a brilliant writer, and he came up with the script, and it is in his own voice."

Frazier and Martinez plan to distribute copies of the DVD to schools and libraries in Wilmington and the surrounding area. The idea of "The Piano Entertainer" as a teaching tool has been in the minds of both artists since the start of their collaboration. Frazier said he's where he is today because of a good education.

Martinez has made a number of successful documentaries – his film about the Mardi Gras Indians also played at the Cameron recently – and he's a professor in the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Department of Education. He believes that young people have a lot to take away from Frazier's life.

"Grenoldo worked hard to develop his skills, and he is a role model," Martinez said. "Grenoldo is a living example of what the public schools can do."

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